Was tennis star poisoned by a jealous rival to stop her winning Wimbledon?
THE mystery deepened last night around a British junior tennis player forced to pull out of Wimbledon with a rare illness.
It has been claimed that Gabriella Taylor, 18, who fell ill during her quarter-final match last month, was poisoned – and police are investigating the allegations.
But health experts said foul play was ‘highly unlikely’.
Miss Taylor was seen clutching her stomach while playing American Kayla Day, 16, and lost the first set before conceding the match.
She spent four days in intensive care and came ‘close to death’ after contracting a highly rare bacterial infection called leptospirosis, which can be carried by cattle, pigs and dogs, but most commonly in rat urine.
Her mother Milena Taylor, 49, claimed it was ‘impossible’ for her daughter to have simply caught the disease. She said: ‘She was staying in a completely healthy environment.
‘For her to get ill in these circumstances, with rat urine, was just impossible. The bacteria the infection team found is so rare in Britain that we feel this could not have been an accident.
‘Her bags with her drinks in were often left unattended in the players’ lounge and someone could have taken the opportunity to contaminate her drink.’
But Professor Elizabeth Wellington, a microbiologist at the University of Warwick, said: ‘It’s a bit laughable. Spiking a drink is not going to work.
‘In order to deliberately infect her, she would have to have an open wound and they would have had to get it in there – that’s the unbelievable part. It is much more likely she has got it from natural sources rather than biological espionage.’
Dr Peter Fox, a water and environmental consultant, said the idea Miss Taylor was poisoned was a ‘far stretch’, adding that leptospira, the bug that causes the disease, is ‘not something you can buy from a shop or online’.
David Mabey, a specialist in infectious diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said leptospira ‘is not a bug you can grow in the lab’ and is most often contracted by swimming in contaminated water.
He added: ‘If you were wanting to poison someone, this would be an extremely roundabout way of going about it. You’d have to catch a rat, make sure it was infected and get it to pee in her bath water or something.’
Miss Taylor, from Southampton, who is ranked 381 in the world, told the BBC before her diagnosis: ‘It was probably the worst time of my life. I couldn’t continue. It was heartbreaking.
‘It started the day before as a stomach bug and I managed to overcome it...But, the day of the quarter-final, I woke up and felt ten times worse. I couldn’t believe it was happening to me in one of the most important tournaments of my life.’
At the time, Miss Day expressed her shock at her opponent’s departure from the match. There is no suggestion Miss Day, who was later beaten in the semifinal by Russian Anastasia Potapova, had anything to do with the alleged poisoning
Mrs Taylor yesterday said her daughter has resumed training in Marbella, Spain, but has not fully recovered. She told a local radio station: ‘It will take quite a long time for Gabi to recover completely, especially mentally.’
The Metropolitan Police said they are ‘awaiting medical information’ about Miss Taylor and are ‘investigating an allegation of poisoning with intent to endanger life or cause grievous bodily harm’. A spokesman added: ‘The victim received hospital treatment and is still recovering. There have been no arrests and inquiries continue.’
A Wimbledon spokesman said they would not comment on an ongoing police investigation.